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Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars
Story Line Zim's newest plan for Earth conquest is almost ready, and he wants the Almighty Tallest to come see it since The Massive is nearby. "The latest plan" is a monster leech that sucks out and eats the brains of people, and GIR must keep its levels under control to prevent it from escaping. The Tallest don’t care and hang up on Zim's call, but Zim is still determined that Red and Purple get "front row seats to the end of all mankind." Dib meanwhile, has Tak's Ship in his garage, and is able to use the onboard computer to decifer Irken text. Also, since Dib placed a spy bug in Zim's Base during Tak: The Hideous New Girl, he can steal information from Zim's computer. Using both of these resources, Dib listens in on a call Zim makes to Prisoner 777 on planet Vort. Zim asks the Vortian scientist for schematics for The Massive, as well as other data that would help him control the ship, and bring the Tallest to Earth. However, the Tallest have problems of their own to take care of; a resistance group called The Resisty. Normally, their ship would be no match for the Massive, but right before the Tallest's command ship blows up the Resisty, Zim takes control of the Massive. Unfortunatly, the alien maintains control for only a few minutes, because then Dib buts his big head in, and starts flying the Massive in the opposite direction. Zim and Dib fight for control of the ship on Earth, while in space the two Tallest are thrown about wildly with the Resisty shooting at them. At some point during all of this, Zim's Computer warns his master that the brain leech's levels are dangerously out of control. Zim abandons the fight for the Massive momentarily to see why GIR wasn't doing his job. On the way to the leech room, the computer informs Zim that someone is at the door. Zim brushes it off as a minor annoyance and orders the Roboparents to take care of it, and continues to where GIR is. Zim finds GIR lying in a pile of mashed potatoes, and quickly puts the robot back to work. But before Zim can go back to fighting Dib, the computer tells Zim that the Roboparents are malfunctioning horribly, and are playing catch with the little boy at the door as a ball. Zim then changes GIR's orders and has him fight Dib in his place, while Zim goes upstairs and takes care of the Roboparents. To his horror, Zim sees that the entire neighborhood is staring at his fake parents, who have now begun eating the little boy. The alien throws the boy into the crowd and pushes the Roboparents back inside. Robodad, however, becomes mad at Zim and yells at him for being rude. Both parents start chasing after Zim, who runs back to the control room where GIR and Dib are each trying to control the Massive. After laying down a forcefield to the entrance of the room to keep the Roboparents out, Zim takes the controls back from GIR, and then commands his robot slave to take care of the leech once more. After a few more minutes of fighting between Dib and Zim, Zim realizes that Dib is using Tak's ship to control the Massive, and then once the computer locates Dib's spybug, Zim remotely reactivates the security programming in the Irken ship. Tak's downloaded personality interface locks Dib out of the ship and starts attacking him, leaving Zim free to gain full control of the Massive. Back on the Massive, Red figures out that Zim is controlling the ship by establishing a link with the ship's power core. To fix the problem, Red has the Massive's pilots switch power cores with the Resisty's ship. Now the Resisty are the ones who are being pulled toward Earth, but Zim doesn't realize it. Lard Nar, the leader of the Resisty, orders the shrinky-self-destruct to be activated, and the Resisty escape, promising to return again. Back on Earth, Zim decides to land the Massive on Dib's head. At first Dib panics when he sees what he thinks is the Massive, but is actually the Resisty's ship, but then it shrinks and explodes, leaving nothing behind. Zim freaks out when the signal he had locked to control the ship dissapears, but then he freaks out even more when the computer reports an emergency with the leech. Once the Massive's controls come back online, the Tallest call Zim to reprimand him for commandeering their ship. But when Zim shows up on screen, he is running around in pain with a giant brain leech attached to his head, GIR is eating mashed potatoes, and Robomom is taking pictures of Robodad eating a little boy. Watch This Episode Here http://invaderzimepisodes.com/419/back-seat-drivers-from-beyond-the-stars/ Facts of Doom *There are two closed captioning errors in this episode. One is when Dib first appears as a hologram, Zim says: "Damn that!" but he really is just saying "Dib!" The second one is when Gir and Dib are fighting over the controls. Dib supposedly says: "This sucks, y'know?" but really says: "Get off! No!" *When Dib appears next to Zim, a blue button appears and says "New Player". This is a reference to multiplayer video games. *When Almighty Tallest Red is pretending to punch The Resisty's ship with a puppet of himself, the puppet's antennae are similar to Zim's in the pilot episode. *There is a scene in this episode that is similar to the arcade game Centipede, when The Massive appeared on screen as a long line that snakes around. *This episode is featured on the Invader ZIM Volume 3: Horrible Holiday Cheer DVD. *In this episode, we discover that Invader Larb has succeeded in his mission to conquer the planet Vort. *This episode never aired in the US until 2006, but it aired in other countries years earlier. *Zim's rant towards the beginning of the episode lasted for three hours, though we only hear 51 seconds of it. *Tak is involved in this episode, though only through the AI programmed in her old ship. *This is Jhonen Vasquez's favorite episode of Invader ZIM. *When Zim and Dib are piloting the Massive in the asteroid field, it looks brand new, when it is supposed to be beaten up. *For some reason, the Irken Fleet leaves the Massive behind once it loses control, instead of trailing it as it usually does. The Fleet reappears only once when the Massive is being repaired. *Throughout many parts of this episode, Zim, GIR, and Dib's colors pale down, and then get back to normal. *Although this episode takes place all on the same night, when the boy goes up to Zim's door, it is daytime, even though its supposed to be nighttime. Another time is when Zim gets out of the garbage can to stop the Roboparents. You can see a window above Zim that shows it is daytime. Then, just one second later when Zim runs outside, it's nighttime again. *The Almighty Tallest were originally going to die in this episode during the scene where The Massive crashes into the star. Wally Wingert pleaded for Jhonen to have them die, but he refused. *This is one of the rare episodes we get to see Zim actually take off his human contact lenses. When the Roboparents force him back down into the piloting room, his wig falls off. We see him with no wig but his lenses on, which he then throws off before hopping back into the cockpit. *In the part in which the Almighty Tallest are eating donuts while the giant laser is being fired, the donut crumbs seem to be in zero gravity. *Almighty Tallest Purple was originally supposed to lick donut crumbs off the "camera" when Tallest Red was running the manual diagnostic. *Look closely at Lard Nar throughout this episode and you'll notice that his outfit keeps changing. *Prisoner 777 is voiced by the same person who voices Almighty Tallest Red. *When Dib is establishing the link from his computer to Tak's ship, the picture on the corner of his computer screen is of Zim's ship instead of Tak's. *When Zim first gains control of the Massive and Tallest Red is screaming, "What's happening? Why have we lost control?", Tallest Purple's voice is heard instead. *The fourth wall is broken in this episode when Zim tells Dib "Watch as I bring a royal audience to the downfall of the human race". It looks like the audience is sitting inside Tak's ship, and looks at Zim when he's talking, and then when Dib talks the camera looks up at him, and then it goes back to Zim, then starts going back to Dib but stops and goes back to Zim. *The button that activates the Shrinky Self Destruct on the Resisty's ship looks like wobbly headed Bob, one of Jhonen Vasquez's other characters. *Right after the Resisty leave and the Tallest are eating doughnuts, you can see that Red's tongue is a human tongue instead of an Irken one. *When the Resisty's ship appeared to Dib, he should have realized it was the wrong ship because while he was fighting for control of the Massive, he actually saw a picture of it. *When Dib is reading aloud about planet Vort, his eyes are going right to left, but when the camera zooms in, his eyes change direction to left to right. *You will find Bloody GIR in this episode. When Almighty Tallest Purple says "Hey, that's a Vort ship!", look very closely next to his head and you will see him there, although it is extremely small. Watching the Netflix version is recommended, as it will disappear during the shot and leave some blurriness near Purple's head. This will show you where he was. *If you pay attention, you will notice "Resisty Rocks!" is written on the massive BEFORE it shows the Resisty writing it. *When Zim is running away from The RoboParents, before he runs in the trash can, Zim's lenses are gone, however, they are on him before and after that scene. Quotes Almighty Tallest Red: I was curious to see when you'd shut up on your own. But it's been THREE hours now, Zim. THREE HOURS! So... what is it? GIR: I made mashed potatoes! Zim: Yes... and muffins. Shloonktapooxis: Wheeeoh, did anybody think that was cool? Please respond! Zim: With this, I can pilot The Massive and bring the Almighty Tallest here to witness my ingenious evil! Dib: Noo! Zim: 'I said evil! 'Shloonktapooxis: How 'bout "The Pirate Monkeys"? Issa awesome name. Lard Nar: Hmmm... No. We need something scary! Something to strike fear into all who hear of the resistance! Spleenk: I got it! I got it! Almighty Tallest Red: Identify yourselves. Lard Nar: We are the Resisty! We have come to strike... Almighty Tallest Purple: Whoo whoo whoo! Did you say... the Resisty? Lard Nar: Yes, yes. The Resisty! Anyhow... we have come... Almighty Tallest Purple: That's a stupid name. (The Resisty's scary setup falls apart) Lard Nar: See, I told you it was stupid! Why do I keep listening to you? Spleenk: I don't know. Almighty Tallest Red: ...Destroy them! Fire some kinda...laser...thingie at 'em... RIGHT NOW! Spleenk: We're being pulled towards a nearby planet! We're gonna crash! It's gonna hurt! And I don't wanna! Lard Nar: (screams for two seconds) ''I, uh, I mean, EVACUATE THE SHIP! 'The Resisty' ''(screams) Lard Nar: Activate the SHRINKY SELFDESCRUCT! No alien thieves will steal the secrets of this ship. Computer(in a jazzy voice):' "Shrinky Selfdestruct: Activated!" 'Lard Nar: ''(vowing revenge) Hear me, Irken Scum!' (declaring) You have not seen the last of the Resistyyyyy!!! (explosion in back of the ship) Yeah, THAT's still our name! '''Zim: You're nothing, Earth boy! Go home and shave your giant head of smell...with your bad self! Dib: ...Okay, there's all kinds of things wrong with what you just said. Professor Membrane: 'Son, there'd better not be any walking dead up there! 'Dib: It's nothing to worry about, Dad, and I said I was sorry about that! Zim: Ha, watch Dib! Watch as I bring a royal audience to the downfall of the human race! Dib: I don't wanna watch that. Zim: Oh, okay. ...WAIT, that's too bad! Zim: Oh, I know all kinds of things about you. Pretty creepy, huh? Anyhow, I was just... Almighty Tallest Purple:'Hey... that is creepy! You're creepy, Zim! 'Zim: Laughs. Yes, I sure am. Lard Nar: 'That's The Massive out there. My people designed most of that thing, so I know how powerful it is... We're gonna die! Who's idea was this?!?! 'Spleenk: 'Uh, mine. Sorry 'bout that. 'The Resisty: Groans. Zim: And to make it even sweeter, I'll land The Massive right on top of your landing-pad sized monster of a head, which is disturbingly large Dib: Nooo! And quit making fun of my head! Robodad: Come on son, let's go play in the toilet! Zim's Computer: Something is happening at the front door. Something... horrible! GIR: YAYYYY!! I don't know what you just said! GIR: It's me! I was the turkey all along! Zim: I was wondering what that turkey was doing there. GIR! I'm delaying the brain parasite plan for now. I want you to... GIR: I was the turkey! Me! Zim: Yes... so you were. Zim: That's Tak's ship you're sitting in, isn't it? Dib: Yes it is, Zim! It fell from the - Zim: Isn't it?!? Dib: I said it was! Man, you have a problem with listening, Zim. Zim: ISN'T IT?!?!?!? Robomom: Come on over, everyone, and help us eat this little boy! Zim: NO! were normal, were normal. Dodedodedo! Irken Communication Crew Member: Long-distance communication. back online. Almighty Tallest Red: Now... let's give our friend Zim a call. Almighty Tallest Purple: Yeah. I'm gonna make him hurt. (TV screen turns on, showing Zim running around with the brain-eating parasite attached to his head) Zim: My brain! My brain! Me hurting to think! (Red and Purple stare in horror as nauseating noises come from TV) Almighty Tallest Purple: I'm going to throw up. (runs off screen making retching noises) Almighty Tallest Red: Nooo! Not on the donuts! Prisoner 777: (Sighs) What is it now, Zim? Zim: Detailed schematics for The Massive, and instructions to remote command chair. Prisoner 777: The Tallests' command ship? That would be WRONG! And INFURIATE the ARMADA!!! ...I designed that ship, you know! Here ya go! (Gaz yells angrily) Professor Membrane: What is your brother doing this time? He's not trying to wake the dead again, is he? Always with the dead, that boy! Gaz: He's...talking... Professor Membrane: Oh, is that all? Daughter, some people like to talk! Your brother likes to talk about INSANE things! Maybe he'll become less insane if you listen! Gaz: But his voice...fills me with a terrible rage!!! Professor Membrane: Oh, I know it does, honey, I know it does! (He turns back to work, and Gaz just groans) Dib: Good idea, Gaz! Make some popcorn! We'll be up all night deciphering this stuff! Dib: Hey, look at that garbage can!!! (once Zim turns away, Dib throws the spybug into Zim's computer, which drills ridiculously loud) Zim: (not noticing anything at all) Yes, it is rather impressive, that can! References http://www.tv.com/invader-zim/backseat-drivers-from-beyond-the-stars/episode/198989/trivia.html Category:Double Length Episodes Category:Season 2 Category:Dib Filmography Category:Gaz Filmography Category:GIR Filmography Category:Zim Filmography Category:Professor Membrane Filmography Category:Professor Membrane Filmography Category:Almighty Tallest Filmography Category:Episodes